A peridot
by 3710rice
Summary: Just a little character study I whipped up at 11 o clock at night. Random surges of motivation are to blame. One-shot, technically.
**A/N So uh its about midnight and i just really like Peridot so this is something i just barely managed to get up to 1k words ( my minimum for posting) and i havent really done anything in a while so might as well post this. Enjoy, and please leave a fav or review if you liked it.**

From the moment Peridot was created, it was drilled into her that she was nothing. She was a single peridot, easily replaceable and nothing special. It was made clear that she would never rise above what she was made to do, never be more than a simple researcher, maybe tech support if she was particularly good. And for the longest time, Peridot was content with that. For the longest time, she was just a peridot. Just here to further the Diamond Authority.

She had no identity beyond her assigned cut and facet number. She was one of the crowd. It wasn't an uncomfortable life either- peridots were made to work most, but not all, of the time. So she got a few hours break every now and again. Not that any loyal peridot would ever use it for anything besides resting quickly so they may return to their jobs, and work even harder. A lazy gem was a harvested gem, as the saying went. Of course, this only really applied to lower class gems. The overseers for peridots were always lazing around, because peridots were always so good at working. Their presence made her work much harder, even if they weren't doing much, so in a way they were still doing their jobs, and therefore were not being lazy. As long as you were doing your job you were safe and fulfilled.

And then she had to get herself stranded on Earth. There was suddenly no structure, nobody telling her what to do, nobody overseeing her. It was maddening. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. She had to struggle on, trying to keep doing her job for the most part. She focused mainly on the cluster, carrying out duties as if there was an overseer. It was hard, but it kept her comfortable in her position. She was just a peridot. If she died here it would be of no consequence, as the cluster would reform soon whether she was here or not.

Then Steven and his traitorous friends came along. Steven would come into the bathroom, in those early days, and he referred to her as just Peridot. It took several days for someone like herself, used to just being a sequence of digits, to realize that when he said that, he was referring to her specifically. It was a name. Names (in such a unique manner, at least) didn't really even exist on homeworld. Everyone was just their gem and cut number. It was much easier. To hear someone refer to her as Peridot like one would refer to one-of-a-kind gems was odd, and seemed almost disrespectful.

But soon Peridot's thought began to change. She _was_ the only peridot on this planet. In a way, a peridot such as herself was rare here. So what was the harm in being Peridot, not Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG. It was less of a mouthful.

As Peridot spent more time on Earth, she began to divulge from the calculated behavior that was programmed into her. It was odd, how dozens of years of training could be altered in mere months. Everything on Earth was completely backwards. Fusions walked among gems as equals, no, as leaders! Pearls did more than serve masters! Most frightening of all, Peridot was getting used to those abnormalities. She no longer felt repulsion and fear towards the fusion, and held a begrudging respect for Pearl. She felt a strange connection with the defective gem, finding humor (another alien concept) in her words.

Peridot also felt a strong need to protect Steven. Why she could not say. Something about Steven just seemed so innocent and small, and Peridot just felt like if something went wrong with him she would never forgive herself. When she asked Amethyst about this oddity, the response was a shrug and "Steven has that effect on people."

The way the gems talked to each other, as if they were all equal, would have been a crime on Homeworld. The energy of the gems seemed to flow between them, each one filling a different role, and that role fluctuated. Most of the time Garnet was the one that decided who did what, but Pearl told the others what to do. Even Amethyst would shout occasional commands, despite this not being her area of expertise. There was no defined leader, no defined overseer, and no defined workers. Even Peridot, who was not a crystal gem, could call for help or a task to be done and have it fulfilled. It was bizarre. The structure was gone, but it wasn't the chaos Peridot expected. It was natural, and felt even more fulfilling than her work on Homeworld.

Peridot didn't feel any shame for her actions on Earth. Earth was just so different than Homeworld that rules there didn't seem to apply here. Of course, the moment Peridot communicated with her Diamond, it became crushingly obvious what she had done. From the moment Yellow Diamond had to ask her for her facet and cut, Peridot began to feel ashamed. She should have opened with that. It was standard protocol. Even worse, the mortifying moment when Peridot realized that she had almost forgot the correct identification, as she hadn't even mentioned it in months. In thinking herself as only "Peridot", she had let herself believe that she was more than just one of many.

She had begun to believe that she was somehow special, something different than what she was. But as Yellow Diamond had talked, Peridot began to realize just how different she had indeed become. What other peridot had even heard of Camp Pining Hearts, let alone seen it? What other peridot had learned Earthen jokes? None of them. Peridot, by being assigned to Earth, had accidentally made herself the one thing she had been told never to be. She dragged herself out of being just 'a peridot' and had become Peridot.

Peridot, by doing what she was meant to do, became what she was never meant to be.


End file.
